Like anyone else in this late industrial age, I know several people with cancer. One friend reports that people seem shy about using the “c” word in her presence, so they resort to euphemisms; they ask about her “health” or her “condition.” For these people, perhaps even the word “cancer” is too much, perhaps they fear mentioning the word will invoke the disease. A century ago, people had similar fears of using the word “devil.” Our superstitions don’t change, only the words we fear to say.
If cancer is our new devil, then perhaps Louisiana is hell. Greenpeace, the environmental group unafraid to speak unpopular words, has a slogan for Louisiana: Cancer Starts Here. The stretch of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is called “Chemical Corridor” by some and “Cancer Alley” by others, the difference depending on whether the one has gotten rich or gotten cancer from the chemicals.
Last weekend, Greenpeace led a tour of the communities of Cancer Alley, definitely Cancer Alley, because the residents of those communities have only gotten sick, not rich. The issue in Louisiana is not jobs versus the environment; the former head of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality told the delegation that the state has neither. Since the chemical companies arrived on the river, every waterway in the state has become polluted. Every one. At the same time, unemployment and poverty in Louisiana are among the highest in the nation. No jobs, no environment. On the other hand, Louisiana state legislators receive more corporate campaign contributions than their counterparts in most other states. Citizens from Cancer Alley told the Greenpeace delegation how their communities have been destroyed by the chemical plants. Every other business in town either shuts down or moves away, they said, leaving only depression, disease and despair.
The tour delegation was comprised of celebrities – writers, actors, politicians and activists. In Norco, the delegation stood on a playground a hundred yards from a Shell Oil refinery, listening to parents speak about the fear they have for their children when the wind shifts and the basketball courts fill with choking fumes.
Two days earlier, a gas tank at the Orion Refinery exploded and burned for 13 hours. Residents, some of whom live only a few dozen yards from the facility, were told to stay inside, seal windows and doors, turn off air conditioners. This in Louisiana, in June. Firefighters came, and because it was a gas tank fire, they fought it with chemicals. What would you do if you lived next door to this? Get out, run, become violently ill immediately from the toxic cloud? Or would you obey, seal your windows, swelter, wait, worry about cancer, worry about your children, worry about another explosion, maybe the explosion that will kill you? Plant officials said the explosion was caused by lightning. Neighbors said it was just one more in a series of negligent accidents at a company that cares only for the bottom line.
Dr. Beverly Wright, director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice told the delegation that 80 percent of African-Americans living between New Orleans and Baton Rouge live within three miles of a toxic facility. Eugenia Edwards, an environmental health activist from New York spoke of the global increase in asthma, with particular increases in the U.S. and even sharper increases in African American communities.
If cancer is the new devil, is Louisiana hell? No, it’s not, because the people who live in Louisiana did nothing to deserve their fate, aside from being born with the original sins of poverty, racism and political impotence. The devils of Shell Oil, Orion Refining, Dow Chemical and Georgia Gulf may have infested the banks of the Mississippi, but the people of Ella Plantation, Iberville, Norco and New Sarpy are angels and saints. They were born into a world they cannot escape, where the very things that should sustain life – air, food and water – are tainted by the devil’s touch, and yet they do not lose faith.
Greenpeace brought a busload of celebrities to see life in Cancer Alley, famous and influential people, several millionaires among them. In the course of a day, I saw them several times weep with admiration at the courage of these oppressed people.
There are any number of devils loose in Louisiana, in the air and water and in the pockets of politicians, devils who work their evil with lies and falsehoods. The angels fight them by speaking truth.
Greenpeace Goes to Hell
Like anyone else in this late industrial age, I know several people with cancer. One friend reports that people seem shy about using the “c” word in her presence, so they resort to euphemisms; they ask about her “health” or her “condition.” For these people, perhaps even the word “cancer” is too much, perhaps they fear mentioning the word will invoke the disease. A century ago, people had similar fears of using the word “devil.” Our superstitions don’t change, only the words we fear to say.
If cancer is our new devil, then perhaps Louisiana is hell. Greenpeace, the environmental group unafraid to speak unpopular words, has a slogan for Louisiana: Cancer Starts Here. The stretch of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is called “Chemical Corridor” by some and “Cancer Alley” by others, the difference depending on whether the one has gotten rich or gotten cancer from the chemicals.
Last weekend, Greenpeace led a tour of the communities of Cancer Alley, definitely Cancer Alley, because the residents of those communities have only gotten sick, not rich. The issue in Louisiana is not jobs versus the environment; the former head of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality told the delegation that the state has neither. Since the chemical companies arrived on the river, every waterway in the state has become polluted. Every one. At the same time, unemployment and poverty in Louisiana are among the highest in the nation. No jobs, no environment. On the other hand, Louisiana state legislators receive more corporate campaign contributions than their counterparts in most other states. Citizens from Cancer Alley told the Greenpeace delegation how their communities have been destroyed by the chemical plants. Every other business in town either shuts down or moves away, they said, leaving only depression, disease and despair.
The tour delegation was comprised of celebrities – writers, actors, politicians and activists. In Norco, the delegation stood on a playground a hundred yards from a Shell Oil refinery, listening to parents speak about the fear they have for their children when the wind shifts and the basketball courts fill with choking fumes.
Two days earlier, a gas tank at the Orion Refinery exploded and burned for 13 hours. Residents, some of whom live only a few dozen yards from the facility, were told to stay inside, seal windows and doors, turn off air conditioners. This in Louisiana, in June. Firefighters came, and because it was a gas tank fire, they fought it with chemicals. What would you do if you lived next door to this? Get out, run, become violently ill immediately from the toxic cloud? Or would you obey, seal your windows, swelter, wait, worry about cancer, worry about your children, worry about another explosion, maybe the explosion that will kill you? Plant officials said the explosion was caused by lightning. Neighbors said it was just one more in a series of negligent accidents at a company that cares only for the bottom line.
Dr. Beverly Wright, director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice told the delegation that 80 percent of African-Americans living between New Orleans and Baton Rouge live within three miles of a toxic facility. Eugenia Edwards, an environmental health activist from New York spoke of the global increase in asthma, with particular increases in the U.S. and even sharper increases in African American communities.
If cancer is the new devil, is Louisiana hell? No, it’s not, because the people who live in Louisiana did nothing to deserve their fate, aside from being born with the original sins of poverty, racism and political impotence. The devils of Shell Oil, Orion Refining, Dow Chemical and Georgia Gulf may have infested the banks of the Mississippi, but the people of Ella Plantation, Iberville, Norco and New Sarpy are angels and saints. They were born into a world they cannot escape, where the very things that should sustain life – air, food and water – are tainted by the devil’s touch, and yet they do not lose faith.
Greenpeace brought a busload of celebrities to see life in Cancer Alley, famous and influential people, several millionaires among them. In the course of a day, I saw them several times weep with admiration at the courage of these oppressed people.
There are any number of devils loose in Louisiana, in the air and water and in the pockets of politicians, devils who work their evil with lies and falsehoods. The angels fight them by speaking truth.